VIDEO: South Carolina family gets a late night surprise from giant alligator

by WPDE

The 9 foot, 250 pound alligator that Shatrina Greenwood found on her front porch on May 8, 2015. (CTSY: Shatrina Greenwood via WPDE)

CONWAY, S.C. (WPDE) -- No one likes someone banging on their door in the middle of the night looking for a place to stay.

Especially when the unexpected visitor is a 9 foot, 250 pound alligator.

That's exactly what Shatrina Greenwood found Sunday night on her porch in Conway, South Carolina.

Greenwood had friends over, and when she went into the other room to take a phone call she heard a loud boom.

She has three dogs and two children, so she initially thought it was one of them.

When she opened her door she saw the gigantic prehistoric-looking reptile resting on her porch.

After screaming and calling 911, Greenwood sat down next to the alligator with only a screen door between the monstrous reptile and her three dogs and two children.

"I pretty much sat right here and stayed here the whole time looking at his eyes because I needed to keep an eye on his eyes," said Greenwood.

The alligator wasn't the worst house guest for a little while; he mostly just sat and stared.

Around midnight Russel Cavender, The Snake Chaser, showed up and started to wrangle the gator off of the porch.

The alligator did not like being asked, or forced, to leave and took out a couple of signs and ground lights on the way out.

"It wore me out, that was tough," said Cavender. "Getting rolled over, sometimes you snare them and they'll get up on you and they'll roll on your shins and scrape the skin on your shins. That's about the worst of it, that's what I got last night a pretty raw shin."

Cavender said that alligators are not aggressive towards humans.

"They have no intention of attacking you at all, it's such a rare thing," Cavender said. "There's only been one person I believe since 1964 that's been physically attacked by an alligator in South Carolina."

It's mating season for alligators, so Cavender said people should expect to see a lot more alligators popping up in spots they usually don't.

"This gator was missing a good ten inches of its tail, and it measured just over 8 and a half feet, so it's probably a good 9 and a half feet," Cavender said. "That means there probably a good 12 foot gator somewhere near there that said 'Get out of here, this is my pond, I'm mating with these females'."

He said the alligator was taken to a safe place, and won't be visiting that family again any time soon.